The states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab and Delhi are now facing frequent and galling power-cuts because of negligence in the process of transmission and distribution of electricity in the past few years.

Taking note of the grave situation, the newly-elected NDA government has asked the states suffering with electricity crisis to revamp the electricity transmission process.

According to highly placed sources in the Power Ministry, the power crisis in Delhi and the rest of the northern states is because of the slipshod attitude of the state governments. These stated did not take any required step to improve the transmission system in the past ten years.

For example, no steps have been taken in Delhi in the last ten years to regulate the framework of electricity transmission despite increment in the production and demand of electricity.

The new government will be implying the Gujarat model in order to improve the process of transmission and distribution of electricity in the northern state. Gujarat improved the transmission process before being self-dependent in production of electricity while the northern states of the country did the opposite.

Giving the example of Uttar Pradesh, officials of the Power Ministry say that the state government has not spent a single penny on improving the electricity transmission line whereas the demand of electricity is increasing day by day.

The demand for electricity in Uttar Pradesh is escalating from the past few days but no steps are being taken to enhance the transmission lines. The transformers are not able to take the load because of the old lines and as a result are collapsing. The condition in Delhi and Bihar is the same.

But the state governments will have to deal with this problem. In such a situation, the states will have to bear the outages despite the power supply.

As a result, the Power Ministry has instructed NTPC to produce electricity through Bavana Gas project. Moreover, it has asked NTPC to produce three more mmscmd of gas to fulfill the electricity requirement of the state.

Power Minister Piyush Goyal met Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor on Monday to chalk out a plan to solve the electricity crisis. There was discussion to save electricity in the meeting.

Goyal has asked the Delhi government to disconnect the power of every alternate street light rather than switching off all street lights.

No relaxation in June

The people of Delhi will have to survive the month of June in restlessness as the temperature is expected to rise and there is a power crisis in the national capital.

It will take at least 20-25 days to solve this problem, which means it will be next to impossible this month to find a solution to the power crisis. However, the Lieutenant Governor met top officials to find a solution in this regard.

Despite all this, a relaxation in the current situation seems impossible.

The demand for electricity in Delhi was high on Monday as compared to Saturday and Sunday.

The demand for electricity was 3600 MW on Sunday morning whereas it was 3900 MW on Tuesday. Similarly, the maximum requirement of electricity on Sunday was 4286 MW which increased to 5191 MW on Tuesday morning.